Digg, Milk founder Kevin Rose headed to Google: report

It’s good to be Kevin Rose. Just one day after Rose’s mobile app company Milk announced that it would be shuttering its only product, Oink, word has surfaced from the bowels of unnamed sources that Rose has been hired by Google, according to AllThingsD. The nature of Rose’s purported Google gig has not yet been revealed.

Update: TechCrunch reports that the entire Milk team is going to Google, though Oink will not be part of the talent acquisition. Google reportedly paid between $15 and $30 million in the deal, which is significantly higher because Facebook was also reportedly bidding for the team.

As co-founder of Digg.com, Rose is one of the Internet’s most well-know online entrepreneurs. Following the disastrous Digg version 4 redesign in August of 2010, many users fled the site in protest. In March of last year, Rose resigned from Digg to launch Milk. With Rose and “some others” from Milk allegedly heading to Google, the fate of the app incubator remains unknown.

Google and Rose have been closely intertwined over the years. In 2008, Google considered purchasing Digg, but later backed out of the deal. And Google Ventures is one of a few venture capital firms that invested money in Milk. Now, with Google struggling to keep its Google+ social network headed in a straight line, it’s hard not to imagine that Rose may take a role in steering that ship at Google, though no official word has been made on the matter. In fact, neither Google nor Rose have yet commented on the rumor of his new position at the company.

Given Rose’s stature in the tech industry, it will be interesting to see what Google has planned for him — or, rather, what he has planned for Google. We at Digital Trends don’t often keep too close an eye on individual players, since they are so often outside the realm of what most consumers care about. But in this case, you can be sure we’ll be watching this one develop.